Nine years ago I wrote a rockets show and workshop and took in on tour around Wales and England. That’s me back then – blasting off an alza seltzer rocket from a film canister at Hatherop Primary School. It was part of an MSc in communicating science, my dissertation title was ‘developing and evaluation space themed education materials for primary schools’. So I got to do space in schools. I loved it!
Now I’m taking rockets to the Solas Festival in Scotland. We’ll be blasting off in the big barn at 2.30pm on Saturday 22nd June. Here’s what the programme says:
5, 4, 3, 2, 1… BLAST OFF! Join us for an interactive family science show and workshop. Predict, experiment and discover the science behind forces as we launch rockets up into the air. Make your own straw rocket and enter it into our family rockets competition. We’ll finish up outside with one big blast off!
For the workshop section every family will make their own wee rocket and we’ll all have a chance to fire them through a hoop during our rockets competition.
The show ends outside with the water rockets – they go really high so we need to be outside for that. I’ve been ordering rockets from all over the place and they’ve started arriving in the post – rocket deliveries are really the best kind of deliveries to get!
I’ll also be storytelling in a yurt at 11.30am on the Saturday and I’ll be doing a bit of spoken word in the yurt late afternoon too so if you’re heading to the festival please do come and say hello. This is what I look like now by the way (I won’t be wearing that green T shirt but I do still have it!):
Top Tips for Solas
I’m excited about seeing one of my favourite shows ‘The Man Who Planted Trees‘. This will be the eighth time I’ve seen it. I know, I’m a groupie. In fact I like it so much I once interviewed the dog from it, he is very funny! Listen to the interview on audioboo here.
I’m also looking forward to seeing poets Liz Lochhead and Harry Baker. The music looks great too, I’m especially looking forward to seeing fab Edinburgh folk band Kite and the Crane again. There’s also a Zombie Science show that I feel I must see!
Oh and coming back to the space theme – can’t wait to see the show ‘Let’s talk about Space‘!
Find out more about the Solas Festival online.




































